THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE OVERVIEW; For Cheney and Edwards, a Night of Sharp Exchanges

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and ROBIN TONER

Published: October 6, 2004

In a strikingly personal and bitter debate, Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration's record on Iraq on Tuesday night as ''exactly the right thing to do'' and asserted that Senators John Kerry and John Edwards bent with the political winds on national security.

Mr. Edwards fired back with a wide-ranging assault on the administration's honesty and competence in foreign and domestic policy. ''One thing that's very clear is that a long r?m?oes not equal good judgment,'' Mr. Edwards declared, in one of many sharp exchanges that spoke to the closeness of the race and the differences between the two tickets.

Mr. Cheney was defiantly unapologetic about the course of the conflict in Iraq, defending the administration against the charge that it had failed to provide enough troops to stabilize Iraq, as the former top American official in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, said in a speech on Monday. [Page A22.]

Mr. Cheney said he would recommend the same course in Iraq if he had it to do over again, adding, ''The world is safer today because Saddam Hussein is in jail, his government's no longer in power, and we did exactly the right thing.'' [Excerpts, Page A24; video, nytimes.com.]

Mr. Edwards shot back, ''Mr. Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people.'' He repeatedly charged that Mr. Cheney had conflated the threat from Mr. Hussein with Al Qaeda, and argued that the United States needed a ''fresh start'' and new leadership if it was to succeed in Iraq.

The bitter tone of the debate, held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, extended across a range of issues, from Mr. Cheney's tenure as chief executive of Halliburton to Mr. Edwards's voting record.

Mr. Edwards appeared to hold his own in the remarkably intense thrust and parry of the evening, at times putting Mr. Cheney on the defensive. But their confrontation contained nothing that is likely to alter the race fundamentally, and the focus is likely to shift rapidly back to the top of their respective tickets. Mr. Bush is giving a speech on terrorism and the economy on Wednesday morning, and he and Mr. Kerry will debate each other two more times, on Friday in St. Louis and next Wednesday in Tempe, Ariz.

After what many viewed as a lackluster performance by Mr. Bush in last week's debate, Mr. Cheney returned to the harsh attacks of the Republican convention, asserting that Mr. Kerry was unprincipled on national security and could not be trusted to be as aggressive as the Republicans in protecting the nation.

He asserted that the Kerry-Edwards ticket had shifted positions to suit its political needs. ''Now, if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to Al Qaeda?''' Mr. Cheney asked.

Five days after Mr. Bush's first encounter with Mr. Kerry, in Florida last Thursday, Mr. Cheney was under pressure to halt any momentum the Democratic ticket had picked up and sharpen the Republican assault on Mr. Kerry. After weeks in which Mr. Bush held a steady lead, polls have shown the race tightening markedly, to a statistical dead heat in several of them.

For Mr. Edwards, the 90-minute debate, moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS, was a major political test, pitting him against a far more experienced opponent.

With so much at stake, both men unleashed their sharpest attacks, each describing his opponent -- seated just inches away -- with withering contempt. Referring to Halliburton, Mr. Edwards said, ''The facts are, the vice president's company, that he was C.E.O. of, that did business with sworn enemies of the United States, paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false financial information.'' That company, Mr. Edwards added, ended up with a $7.5 billion no-bid contract for work in Iraq.

Mr. Cheney shot back that the Democrat was raising Halliburton as a smokescreen to obscure his own record in the Senate, which was, he asserted, ''not very distinguished' and marked by so many missed votes that a local newspaper called him Senator Gone. The vice president added that he was presiding officer of the Senate, yet, ''The first time I ever met you was when you walked onto the stage tonight.''

Mr. Edwards's spokesman, Mark Kornblau, said later that Mr. Edwards had met Mr. Cheney twice previously, at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 1, 2001, and at the swearing in of Senator Elizabeth Dole, Republican of North Carolina.

Mr. Edwards, his sunny smile gone cold, replied that Mr. Cheney's voting record included voting against such popular programs and initiatives as Head Start, the creation of the Department of Education, meals on wheels for the elderly, and a federal holiday to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the rare moments of personal warmth Tuesday night came on the issue of gay marriage. Mr. Cheney, who has a gay daughter, reiterated his support for the idea that marriage should be regulated by the states, in contrast to Mr. Bush's call for a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. ''People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want,'' he said. ''It's really no one else's business.'' Mr. Edwards praised Mr. Cheney for openly embracing his daughter.